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Opioid-Dependent Newborns Get New Treatment: Mom Instead of Morphine
When babies are born dependent on opioids, typically they are whisked away from their mothers, put into the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), dosed with morphine to get them through withdrawal, and gradually weaned off the drug—a process that can take weeks. Research now suggests that this long-established standard of care may be the worst …
War on Drugs an Epic Fail
Addiction is a health issue, not a moral failing, and physicians need to champion public policy changes that put treatment first and reverse the "absurd" focus on the war against drugs, which has never and will never work, say editors of the BMJ. "All wars cause human rights violations and the war on drugs is …
Why We Need to Change Our Stories About Addiction
Recovery is about stories. Stories of hope, stories of change. In addiction, the stories we tell about ourselves do not tend to have happy endings. Rarely are we the authors of our own journeys, and if we were to assign ourselves a character, it would not be the hero/ine. More often we see ourselves as …
Substance Abuse Doc Says Stop Chasing the Drug Focus on ACEs
He says: Addiction shouldn’t be called “addiction”. It should be called “ritualized compulsive comfort-seeking”. He says: Ritualized compulsive comfort-seeking (what traditionalists call addiction) is a normal response to the adversity experienced in childhood, just like bleeding is a normal response to being stabbed. He says: The solution to changing the illegal or unhealthy ritualized compulsive comfort-seeking behavior …
5 Ways Trauma-Informed Care Supports Children’s Development
Childhood trauma is common. More than two thirds of children in the United States experience a traumatic event or circumstances—such as abuse or neglect, death of a loved one, or community violence—by the time they turn 16. Young children (birth to age five), in particular, are disproportionately exposed to traumatic events and circumstances. While many children return to normal functioning after …
Inside Girls Court, Washington State’s first therapeutic court model for girls
Over the past two decades, while juvenile incarceration rates have been decreasing, rates of incarcerated girls have either stayed the same, or increased. In response, the Kitsap County Girls Court opened in June 2019 as Washington state’s first court system providing service just for girls. A few months ago, I went to see Girls Court in …
Earlier always better? Child development researchers question old assumption
It’s always worth revisiting what we think we know. In recent years, there’s been a trend among early childhood researchers to keep moving the focus to earlier and earlier in children’s lives. The storyline might go something like this: Sure, grade school matters, but we need to think about high-quality preschools to level the playing …
Runaway and Homeless Youth, Mental Health, and Trauma-Informed Care
Young people run away or become homeless for a variety of reasons, many of which can be linked to psychological and emotional trauma. Whether it’s abuse, the consequences of living in poverty, a lack of empathy and support for their self-identity, or some combination of the three, runaway and homeless youth (RHY) often experience significant …
What Is a ‘Trauma-Informed’ Juvenile Justice System? A Targeted Approach
Adolescence is a time of great opportunity, but also turmoil. As many as two-thirds of all teens face the additional challenge of coping with traumatic events such as life-threatening accidents, injuries, illness, disaster, or violence or sexual or emotional abuse and exploitation. That figure rises to closer to 100 percent for those who live in …
10 Simple Steps for Reducing Toxic Stress in the Classroom
We all know that when children aren’t well, they’re less likely to learn. More and more teachers recognize that children who can’t sit still in class, act out, or have asthma may be showing warning signs of a toxic exposure to childhood trauma. More than two decades ago, landmark research from the Centers for Disease …
ACEs, children, adults, research on Teaching Adult Wary Children and Youth
Secure, trusting bonds are essential if young people are to grow, learn, and thrive (Baumeister, 2011; Brendtro, Brokenleg, & Van Bockern, 2005; Shulevitz, 2013). Today there are literally millions of young people disconnected and living in violent communities with over stressed families and schools that are depersonalized. They traverse dangerous communities and the ecology in …
Urban Teens Propose Violence Prevention Strategies
When urban teens were asked to identify solutions for reducing violence in their New Haven, Connecticut community, their recommendations were loud and clear: They hoped for better employment opportunities, more after-school activities, and a cleaner city environment. The teens’ suggestions are the culmination of a unique project called Youth Haven in which 12 youth ambassadors …
What Happens When a “Behaviorist” has Dinner with a “Trauma-Informist”
Let me tell you, dinner with a behaviorist is an experience, a somatic experience. Lily (name changed to protect her 😉 ) and I shared Indian food two nights ago in Keene, NH. As I shuffled into the restaurant ten minutes late (typical me), I rounded the corner and saw her sitting at a table …
ACEs Community School Models
For the past five years, the Hayward Unified School District has been focusing on its lowest-income neighborhoods, transitioning to a “community schools” approach that provides health, social and other services to students and their families. The East Bay Area district south of Oakland offers a case study in the potential of an approach whose goal is to …
Youth Trauma and Adverse Childhood Experiences
The Alternative Schools Network (ASN) Youth Resilience Project is an initiative that grew from the collective desire to develop and provide additional clinical resources for nonprofit and alternative schools in the ASN Network. The Youth Resilience Project is dedicated to the cause of bringing knowledge, awareness, and support to schools around issues associated with youth …
Dear Doctor: What you didn’t ask
Dear Doctor: What you didn’t ask, and what I didn’t tell you I am your patient. We have known one another for a long time, and I want to thank you for healing me so many times. At present, you know me only from annual checkups as a healthy 58-year-old, divorced, Caucasian female; 120 lbs, …
A Sheriff And A Doctor Team Up To Map Childhood Trauma
The University of Florida's Dr. Nancy Hardt has an unusual double specialty: She's both a pathologist and an OB-GYN. For the first half of her career, she brought babies into the world. Then she switched — to doing autopsies on people after they die. "I want to prevent what I'm seeing on the autopsy table. …
Relationship Between Abuse and Neglect in Childhood and Diabetes in Adulthood
Introduction Few studies have investigated links between child abuse and neglect and diabetes mellitus in nationally representative samples, and none have explored the role of obesity in the relationship. We sought to determine whether child abuse and neglect were associated with diabetes and if so, whether obesity mediated this relationship in a population-representative sample of young …
Health Care Utilization and Costs Associated with Childhood Abuse
Background Physical and sexual childhood abuse is associated with poor health across the lifespan. However, the association between these types of abuse and actual health care use and costs over the long run has not been documented. Objective To examine long-term health care utilization and costs associated with physical, sexual, or both physical and sexual …
Lunch, Learn & Connect 1.13.2021
Click to download the notes from Lunch, Learn & Connect! FUTURE OPPORTUNITES CURRENT STRATEGIES PRESENTATION SLIDES
2021 Project Update
2020 and 2021 have brought new challenges and opportunities for the organizations within Creating Community Resilience. As each organization adjusts to their “new normal” they have all found ways to ensure trauma informed care remains a pillar of their work. Not only have our core organizations continued their agency services, but they have also kept …